tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37627577.post7885392960583907285..comments2016-12-03T16:27:06.013-08:00Comments on ~ Book of Kells: On RevisionKelli Russell Agodonhttps://plus.google.com/114073501709922223243noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37627577.post-71228420341555086952008-10-15T10:59:00.000-07:002008-10-15T10:59:00.000-07:00My process really depends upon what form I'm writi...My process really depends upon what form I'm writing. <BR/><BR/>Blogs: Conceived, written, revised, and linked within the hour. The medium allows later changes, though I don't know of any time I've ever gone back and revised a blog entry. <BR/><BR/>Poems: These are written and completed in a day, usually, revising as I go. Some ferment, like Lyle suggests. Some fight me tooth and nail. Regardless, I set them all aside until I find a place that might like what I've written, then I unearth them, fiddle around a little more with technicalities, then send them on their way. When they get published, they rarely get edited at all.<BR/><BR/>Short fiction: These come every which way. I've written stories in a night, revised them the same night, sent them out and got them published almost immediately without any extra tinkering requests from the editors. Others I labor over to get right for as long as 4-5 years. One particular piece was rejected 70+ times then took a prize. Who knows?<BR/><BR/>Sometimes I think my ideas are greater than my abilities, that I need to live a little, grow a little, to catch up with what I want to write. <BR/><BR/>I find positives to Donald Hall's 3-year rule, but my writing life began with prose, not poetry, so maybe that's a worthwhile difference to note. Moments captured in poetry should be crystallized, but in prose, the more time you have to reflect, the more you can build texture into your narrative.<BR/><BR/>You're right: if you wait 3 years, you are no longer that person and not in the space. But to me, that makes me a better critic of my own work. And I would hope that 3 years of living and writing would make me a better writer, more capable of taking that particular manuscript to a new level.<BR/><BR/>Essays, articles: Usually I do a host of note-taking and research and interviews before I start writing. Then it's usually within the day that I start these that they become first complete drafts. Maybe it's my journalist's background, but when it comes to nonfiction, these are written and revised in a flurry and sent on their way. Again, few editing requests for those pieces that are either solicited or accepted from the slush.<BR/><BR/>Finally, novels: these fit the Stephen King advice, "write with the door shut, revise with the door open." I've written 3 novels to draft stage and am finalizing 1 right now. There's no way a novel could be written to "doneness" in the first go-around; not for me! How many passes has my latest one undergone? I'd say 7 or 8, not counting the big overhaul I'm taking it through now and a possible new strategy I'm considering structurally that will mean another big overhaul in point of view. <BR/><BR/>Now, how to really know when anything's finished? My criteria: I ask myself, am I capable of making this particular piece any better? If the answer is yes, then it's not done. If the answer is no, then it's done. <BR/><BR/>Even then, plenty of writers revise work that's already been in print, just as painters and composers and sculptors can't always find closure with their own creations. So maybe we should ask, rhetorically: is anything ever done? <BR/><BR/>http://writersrainbow.blogspot.comYokel (TKS)http://www.blogger.com/profile/18390136198262610993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37627577.post-4912535867097103562008-10-05T22:07:00.000-07:002008-10-05T22:07:00.000-07:00I normally don't write in drafts. I usually have t...I normally don't write in drafts. I usually have to let a poem ferment below the surface for a while, thinking about it from time to time -- for hours or days or weeks or (sometimes) months or years -- before I'm ready to start putting it down on paper.<BR/><BR/>When I start the actual writing, I start with the first line of the poem, and work my way through, line by line, crossing out and rewriting as I go.<BR/><BR/>If I get stuck somewhere, if I'm not sure what comes next, I'll let the poem sit and I'll wait for whatever the next line is. Sometimes this takes a few minutes or a day or two, sometimes longer (weeks or months), sometimes a lot longer.<BR/><BR/>I have poems (a few), that I've finished and published, that I let sit half-done for as long as ten or twelve years, waiting for the next line, looking at them occasionally, and finally the next line came, and I picked up where I left off and continued work on it, and finished the poem.<BR/><BR/>When I have poems that are in progress (which is most of the time), where I'm stuck and waiting for what's next, I keep the unfinished poems in the notebooks I carry around with me everywhere, so the in-progress poems are always handy in case the next line comes to me, or in case I want to sit with it a while and see if I can dig up the next line.<BR/><BR/>(Sometimes the next line comes straight out of the blue, other times I eventually have to work at it, pushing, trying words, crossing out, trying again.)<BR/><BR/>So, I do as much revision, really, as any other poet, but not in multiple drafts. Normally the first draft is also the final draft, though on the notebook page there will typically be lines crossed out, sometimes whole passages, sometimes the same line reworked five or ten times. The final draft -- in the notebook -- can look pretty messy.<BR/><BR/>The above process isn't rigid. Now and then, after a poem is "finished," I'll spot a word or a phrase that I decide needs to be different, and I'll change it. Usually these are minor changes, and I don't do it very often. Usually once I've finished work on a poem, it's pretty much done.Lyle Daggetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10731915540520704368noreply@blogger.com